By Zachary Gorchow
President of Michigan Operations
Posted: May 12, 2020 11:15 AM

Not Mo Hood. This sucks and hurts.

COVID-19 claimed one of the best-liked, most popular figures at the Capitol today in former Sen. Morris Hood III, a Detroit Democrat who started out as the son of one of the most legendary members of the Legislature in the second half of the 20th century, the late Rep. Morris Hood Jr., and by the end of his own 14-year run in the House and Senate had carved out his own reputation as wise, kind and bright.

He had been hospitalized on a ventilator for more than two weeks.

When word of his hospitalization was posted in April to Facebook, there was one comment that really struck me, and I am thinking about now. It was from Irma Clark-Coleman.

In 1998, Mr. Hood's father could not seek reelection because of the onset of term limits, bringing his 28-year run as a force in the House to an end.

The younger Mr. Hood ran for his father's House seat that year. So did Ms. Clark-Coleman, then a member of the Detroit school board. They faced off in a five-way Democratic primary in August.

Ms. Clark-Coleman was the victor, something of a surprise given the success relatives of outgoing legislators tend to have in Michigan, especially in Detroit.

Then, about two months later, the elder Mr. Hood died suddenly. One of the first memories I have of covering the Capitol starting in the fall of 1998 was when the House – still full of veteran lawmakers who served with the elder Mr. Hood in the pre-term limits era – adopted a memorial resolution. The younger Mr. Hood was there, and I can still hear then-House Majority Floor Leader Pat Gagliardi turning to him during his remarks on the floor and saying, "We deeply, deeply admired your father."

I thought to myself at the time how Mr. Hood probably felt bitter, that he should be the one succeeding his dad. Four years later, when Ms. Clark-Coleman ran for and won a Senate seat, Mr. Hood would try again for the House seat and won it, starting his own legislative path. He would then succeed Ms. Clark-Coleman in her Senate seat with a 2010 victory.

It was Ms. Clark-Coleman's comment on the news of Mr. Hood's hospitalization that really hit me and is hitting me again as I type her words.

"One of the good guys," she wrote. "Morris followed me serving in the same state House and state Senate seat, I mentored him, and he called me mom, and I referred to him as son. Hang in there son. Sending love and prayers your way."

Mr. Hood bitter? Hardly. From covering him through the years, I should have realized this, from his stirring, heartfelt speech on the Senate floor just before Christmas in 2013 urging his colleagues to keep perspective and hold their family tight, words borne of his wife's death that year, to his humor, to his just being a good guy.

Of course he and Ms. Clark-Coleman formed a bond.

Mr. Hood, you were deeply, deeply admired.